A GRAND ESSAYE UPON AND UNTO MANKIND

Indeed, it is very ordinary for a Poet to writeth of Love, or of his Beloved, as to settle repletely those passions with which he hath for them desired to charish, as in a variety of ornaments, as how Ethlius Samius says that Samos had some of either figs, grapes, apples, or roses- whereso they art most easily appreciated, and, of coursly, because it is such an accessible and lenient subject of which to, Ipsius hoc dominae concinnat utrunque venustas, [AUSONIUS] Hinc geminam exultans lampada Mundus habet, [Iove Soli coniugata] fulfill our optation, and, because there art certainly no Men whom hath not, in one way or another, come to terms with love, it is thereupon tried and grown so weary of it's treatments in the arts, and in poetry, so, as Byblis and Caunus, and their confated endogamy, it wouldest be an ill- destined task, that should certainly fail, if I were to begin writing upon such a subject. But this is not why I hath written an Ode to Inconstancy. To writeth out of desperation, and to glean oddments in verse, or to thereof write merely to avoid the commonplace is, in itself, the signs to an imperfect work of literature. Naye, I did not beginest writing of Inconstancy, that hath been so far avoided by the greater poets: Milton, Pope, Addison, as in his poem to the coy mistress, or as in the Greek and Latin writers, and, as Shakespeare hath despised it, or as did Wilmot:

            11      Then talk not of inconstancy,
            12      False hearts, and broken vows;
            13      If I, by miracle, can be
            14      This live-long minute true to thee,
            15      'Tis all that Heav'n allows.

But not in Dryden, in his landmark poetical satire, Absolem and Achitophel:

"In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin,
Before polygamy was made a sin;
When man on many multiplied his kind,
Ere one to one was cursedly confined;
When nature prompted, and no law denied, [5]
Promiscuous use of concubine and bride;"

It merely follows in the law of my speculative nature, that I hath invented to Join the Mercurial Faye as a neighbor to the Nymphs, and thereupon give new and untested basis to what is most commonly concieved of as the rather peccant expressions of illegitimate romance.

*************AN ODE TO INCONSTANT LOVE*************

*PAUSE 1: BEFORE THE DATE


Let Euryphaessa appear:
to confess to the morn my deare,
with Her charitable veneer,
in Theia's luminance so clear.
Bring with thee revel and delight,
like when Euterpe playes Her pipe:
bring simpering, and bring me jape,
triumphs like Theselis the brave, [Theselide, Vincentio Saviolo.]
and find me likely in some grove:
at Sicyon, or at Aventine, [Diana's temple was constantly wooded here]
or yet thou may spy in some cove,
me reading, o'erlooking the greene:
from a mountain's conticent den -
wherefore the clouds oft' hang at peace,
neglectful of the ardent wind:
like over Tyrrhenus's sea,
wherefor flotant Aeolus sleeps,
and seals up the four winds as well.
From thence we reckon the Danaan snares: [Virgil: Danaum insidias]
that,  Gramina, nec teneras, [Bellicosae masculae virtutis]
where the towered cities sojourn,
taking up, not at Tyndaris,
but doth in morose, and in heist,
where throngs of barons enterprise.
Thou art the Imbrasian queen:
spared from opinion and judgement,
where through shinest the happy Sun,
like at Eurytania's summit.
Malign is the eye that would bite thy name,
that wouldest worser wither then the rose,
that hath lost it's prairial flame:
and stained the seat whereunto June disposed-
not of red, or of mere unchearful tone,
but of worser then rose's hue is old,
that is called the look of death in shame.
At thine crucial birth, where did thenceforth playe,
the Nymphs and Naiads, in what verdant aisle,
hadst they needs not recieve thou, child?
Telephus thence suckled the doe:
Eileithyia, what saye thee so,
Goddess of the life- giving womb:
by what, prithee, thou didst earn,
such an ornament, Who's skin, so well hued,
and chaste, 'twas cast amongst the laurel's bloom?
With Her flesh, so pure and so kind,
like the fleece of a sheep gone white:
at Cephissus, who's water leaves,
I hath seen paler and more clean.
So togather we hath comest,
in love fed by God's own diet:
Learning, and calmest quiet,
ere they burn us loveless.
And doth upon us the Sun set:
Hyperion, and his mother yelept,
to dissolve us in each other's breast.
And in thine breast do I envide:
the prospect of Heaven before mine eyes,
that twas' every star that could be seene:
the e'ry Herb, and aperient leafe,
that twas' imbibed to nip the dew -
that in eutectic nectar grew. [Eutectic, IE, derived universally.]
But removest the sweord, Sarpedon dies,
toucheth the egge, it is despised.
Thenceforth if one day thou should start,
to rue the laxations of Amor's dart:
take thine self and let my love die.
The appetite for female thew,
Erysichthon twas' thence from born,
immures in hunger, this is true,
like Tereus's yarn forlorn:
I tell thee of the tongue he drew,
the sweet mouth of Pandion's daughter through.
So bidest to thine sweetest spinsterhood -
whylest the Iron strings of marriage breathe,
effodient pedibus glebas. [Gracius]
Writest, I would, an Ode to Thee,
and thine talents of Magic, queer,
that in mine eyes bringest to life:
those, thence, of Eidyia's spheres, [She was the Goddess of sight, so, eyes.]
that in themselves foryete all vice. [In the Eoiae, see Phineus and his vice, blinded.]
As we set, and sip Serpyllum- tea,  [Thestylis Coqua][Wild- Thyme]
or over that common nectar read:  [Thyme tea, Europe's standard tea.]
(The Tea of Thestylis's weed) [Reference to thyme, IE, Thestylis is any rustic lady.]
the gentlest Verse, in flirtful glee. [Attractive songs]
Thereupon, in thee I hath seen:
as Gythium's dye colored gay,  [IE, purple]
or as Phaselis's roses,
under the Sun shooting his ray:
the world I can't take away. [FROM]
How couldest I make thee mine wife:
She, who by herself, is most fine?
How could matrimony thus bind,
thence, to growest like Tithonus:
desitive, frail, in loathsomeness, [desitive, IE, vestive.]
in Eidothea's stinking skins,
thou- inside of this Heart of mine,
all thine cheerily given gifts?
Changeless Maiden, ever thine own,
as Cypselus hidden in His chest,
that was inlaid ivory and gold:
ride thee, Tartessus's silver crest.
Or, as in Epidauria,
Wherefore Asclepius twas' bourne,
in dreams held captive till' the morne:
by illest minds, thence to descry,
medicaments to the forlorn -
let us sleepe, we hath much to do -
let our dreams paint tomorrow's hue.


CANTO 1: Prithee awaken, and prepare for thine date?


Rebelest thine clement bed, the time is now.
Argus, with vigil eyes, finally rests: [Titan of Sun] [Watches with 100 eyes.] [FOR]
Endymion hath besmirch'd his queenly vow,
and, around which hadst all dolor undressed,
Sol hath 'woken to His timorous route.
Prepared, is Phoebus's light for thine crown,
  to gloriously thine forenoone confess.
Thence avaunteth thou, Iphigenian drowse: [Boccaccio's Decameron]
I, as Cymon, hath spied mine sleeping empress.
Whilest thou, on that amber fill'd stream,
Eridanus, divest of thine garb beseene:          [Nonnus, Dionysiaca.]
  cometh with I upon a balmy quest,
to thenceforthe launder and batheth?
Or whilst thee, as Glaucus, in thine honeyed bate, [Appolodorus, Biblotheca]
restore to life, youthful, and naked:
thou must prepare for thine anticipant date. [Serving to make hungry, alimentive]
Looke where arises, like Phaethusa in the East,
nowe an Ornament to see of in dresses white: [sacerdos Vestalis, guards of Hearth.]
mine Love, who I greet, and the Angels bleast,
to, from her balneal spring, new dresses bind,
as hath prepared Heaven's damsels for thine: [Wash the Vestal Rainments]
In attire that should leave wonting kisses,
bashful boys who with thou turne so thriftless,
that get thine kiss, that chance never misses,
like Europa's spear, their lips timidly kind.
Inaugurate the nundinal hours:
welcome fairs, welcome blossoms, and jesting.
Felicity is partial to thine bowre,
we hath need, not for each other's vesting.
Henceforth I live, in what fair hours grant:
those paradisical days and nights,
of Jove's rule, which thou can't recant:
rather or not thou hath left my side,
that which his seasons relegate to thou band. [You and your lovers.]
Jove, father of the Muse's champion: [Apollo]
if ever I didst bring honour to thine,
or elateth thee unlike Thamyris,
take no insult, in this servant so kind.
Who asks thee, this daye thou give to mine:
let thine righteous intentions be excused,
thine amenable seasons hideth our boon. [Make us unaware to the brevity of love.]
Thou, Who hath revealed oftentimes my tune, [Ye, IE, She, the Faye of Mercury.]
in praise as far as the plain of Catalone, [Catalonia]
thou for I hunger, as Thriae honey comb,       
that felt I twas' worthy to speak without
thine sainted consent, mine lyrics devout: [consent, IE, equivalence to you]
verse as thine own beauty calleth their fount,
thine own grace, thine own lips, and thine own mouth.
Uponest thine scale, shouldest thou care to weigheth,
where curious hymen hath not lectured,
this gramme that is such, of my truest Love:
Half drawne out of your well in mine pages.
Half of it tis, of thankfulness, and half of your Heaven:
Halfe longing for another kiss from thine lips libant.
Against it weigh those of Joves, entreasured,    4
sattelites, thence that, by themselves, doth stand 5
wherefor thou callest: Tamesis flumnis. [Joannis Genesii Sepulvedae]
Men who calleth thou torturous and vain:
Goeth to find thine own Flirts, in thine shame.
Calleth "laudis id, omne tenet" [Amerbachius Bonifacius]
trully but thou immurement.
In thou own attenuate heart,
wherefor thou love thou hath imbar'd:  7
but not to ossibus astra misturus. [Pharsalia: A star's bone]
FOR all thine pretended romance is but a distraction:
whilst thou is not like me, and Engonasis. [See in the bookes of Aratus.]
Thou delight in thence making a servant,
thine wife, thence mistaking thine wife's purpose.
Thou findest love, when love thou ever keepe,
thus thine whole romance is the same ill-theme:
thou to thine self, thou makest to salute, [WHEREOF]
both of thee, so love itself, is impun'd. 8
This is a Woman to full for but one Man,
thou takest with thankfulnessee, what thou can.
Thine in thine self hadst thereof beene spente,
if, absent of love, thou hadst but upon thine self drempt.
Love is not bourne to but placate, and content,
for as how this Queene thereinto hath been amongst us,
to giveth thou perspective and temparance to exercise. [FOR]
That which in itselfe, alone, doth, with itselfe, die:
deserveth not, nor could thine ever lament,
nor for could thou e'er move to cry,
that wouldest be eaten, beyonde thou dreriment.
But, prithee, doth not thereunto playe,
thine own plaintive song, of fortune's carelessness.
Thence thou, whereunto we sit, in this little glade,
turneth upon to perdition and dreriment.
Flyeth likest Aëdon, from thine own woe:
let me with mine own tune compell thee so.
Let my voice be the air whereunto we flye:
from e'er other Man's need- e'er Man's pride.
For to I mattereth not, whereupon how much tyme,
with each other we spend;
but moreover, tis' the kind
of Love whereto thee doth with me grace:
and that I hath learned of, thence but to taste.
Prithee thou spreadest thine most eager lampe:
Early, as before with the Earth hath been warmed.
Disperse the fermenting dews and stains of the night:
dry the every blade of grass, madescent and dampe,
thence with thou light, with thou light, for the morn.
Thence mayst no Nymphes, of our estive chear,
from the farthest rivers, and the greenest of woods,
neglecteth thou, and thou: now blessed, revered,
the e'er Man wouldest with spend his life, if he could.
They gather around thee: thine new neighbors found,
Atlantides with wedding gifts, Oenone with wine,
Salmacis, the Naiad by Diana unbound,
who in idleness thereof likes spending her time.




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